Leslie Moore - Griffin's Shadow

The restless crowd parted before them as the royal party moved slowly toward the tall double doors leading out of the hall, which stood open to admit the hazy fall sunshine. Brightly caparisoned horses, held by grooms in formal livery, stamped and snorted on the gravel, harnesses jingling. Members of the King’s Guard stood at each corner of a litter upholstered in pale green silk, ready to hoist the conveyance onto their shoulders. Two additional guards would walk along either side.

Raidan carefully hid his amusement as Jelena frowned at the sight of the litter. She allowed the guards to help her in, then spent several moments arranging the many layers of her gown. Raidan suspected her efforts were not to create an artful display of the sumptuous fabrics, but simply to get them out of her way so she could recline more comfortably against the pillows. After she had composed her garments to her satisfaction, she adjusted the griffin coronet on her brow, then looked about her as if searching for something.

Someone, Raidan realized, as Ashinji Sakehera appeared at her side. He crouched down and the two of them bent their heads together, whispering earnestly to each other.

Your fortunes have risen quickly, young Sakehera. I doubt this sits well with your brother, Raidan thought.

“Your Highness, at your pleasure!”

Raidan looked away from the lovers to see that a groom had brought his horse. All around him, the procession formed up, preparing to move out across the parade ground and down the main avenue into the city. Even at this distance, the prince could hear, like waves crashing against the shoreline, the muted roar of the crowd gathered along the street.

Keizo had already mounted his horse and sat waiting. Raidan swung into his saddle and the king signaled to the litter bearers. Ashinji Sakehera stepped away as they raised Jelena and her litter to their shoulders. He grabbed her hand and kissed it, then went to mount up beside his father. Raidan maneuvered his horse into position next to the king, and they moved off.

The procession wound its way slowly through the streets of Sendai. The largely okui crowds greeted their king and his newly legitimized daughter with polite cheers and muted applause.

All of that changed the moment they entered Jokimichi.

The hikui folk had turned out as if for a festival day. All the shops and houses were hung with streamers and brightly painted banners. The people greeted Jelena with tumultuous cries, surging forward in a desperate attempt to touch her.

At first, Jelena appeared too overwhelmed to move. She sat as still as a painted statue, one manicured hand pressed to her lips. Then, as if awakening from a dream, she turned her head from side to side, and Raidan could see tears flowing from her eyes, carving streaks through her heavy white court makeup. She leaned forward and thrust her hand over the side of the litter, like a woman dangling her fingers over the gunwale of a boat.

An old man seized her fingers, kissed them, then just as quickly released them. Another and yet another person grabbed her hand, each one pressing it fervently to adoring lips.

The King’s Guard made a move to close in and put a stop to things, but Jelena shouted at them to maintain their places. Keizo nodded his head, signaling to the bewildered guardsmen that they should obey his daughter.

“It appears that the hikui folk have already taken your daughter into their hearts!” Raidan had to shout in order to be heard above the crowd.

“So it would seem!” Keizo replied. “Would that the rest of our people were as accepting!”

“Give them time, Brother! The people love you, so they will love your daughter because she is yours!” Raidan spoke to reassure his brother, though he, himself did not really believe his own words, and he could see the uncertainty written on Keizo’s face. The king had always paid close attention to popular opinion, even before he had come to his throne. Raidan felt certain that his brother had noticed the lukewarm reception given to Jelena by the majority of the okui in the city. The prince did not think it realistic to expect that Jelena would be able to win over the okui people of Sendai, despite her likeability and determination.

The procession flowed like a colorful snake out of the hikui district, then turned around and began the slow ascent back toward the castle. Raidan glanced over his shoulder at Jelena, who now leaned back against her pillows, eyes closed. She looked so young and vulnerable, and despite the ruin of her makeup, exquisitely pretty. Raidan could now understand Ashinji Sakehera’s attraction to her.

The crowds had become once again mostly okui folk, curious to see the hikui girl from the east whom the king had declared an Onjara princess. They cheered, but Raidan knew they directed their devotions toward Keizo and not his newly proclaimed offspring. The prince was well-pleased.

It seems that ambition will be served merely by awaiting the inevitable turn of events, he thought.

Within a cold, shadow-haunted chamber, far below the light and warmth of the inhabited levels of Sendai Castle, the King’s Companion knelt before a small altar of rough-hewn stone. Scattered about the room lay the tools of the sorcerer’s trade-thuribles, rock crystal orbs of various sizes, wands, and an extensive collection of vials, bags, bundles, and bottles-all crammed together on plank shelves affixed to the plastered stone walls.

Sonoe had chosen her workplace with care-an abandoned storeroom deep within the warren of chambers that made up the undercroft of the castle. Hers was a secretive business.

The altar stood in the exact center of an intricate circular pattern of lines painstakingly etched into the hard-packed clay of the cellar floor. Viewed from above, a discerning eye could see the many smaller patterns that made up the larger arcane construct. At each point where two or more lesser patterns intersected, a small beeswax taper burned.

Sonoe focused her mind on the task at hand. She removed the gold pins holding her fiery tresses in place and shook them free. She then untied the sash of her thin silk robe and let it slip from her shoulders to the floor. Her bare skin-pale as fresh cream in the candlelight-roughened with gooseflesh in the chilly air, but she ignored the discomfort.

She removed the black stone pendant that hung about her neck and placed it on the altar, then paused to steel herself against what she knew she must soon endure.

The spirit will no doubt wish to…abuse me first, she thought . I mustn’t break, mustn’t show any weakness…No matter what it does to my flesh.

Casting a pinch of incense upon the glowing coals in the small iron thurible, she inhaled the pungent fumes and felt a rush as the mildly narcotic smoke entered her body. Her mind drifted into the still place at the center of her being-that part of her wherein dwelt the essence of her Talent. She drew on the well of energy that fed her power and directed it outward, so that it could be shaped according to her will.

Her fingers tingled and sparked as she picked up the small blade lying beside the thurible, and with a quick, sure stroke, she made a shallow cut across the ball of her left thumb. She squeezed and a crimson bead of blood appeared. Carefully, so as not to spill a single drop, she let her life force drip, along with her blood, into a silver chalice. One, two, three…

After she had counted six drops, she bound her slashed thumb in a strip of clean linen. The first part of the spell was complete.

Next, she poured a measure of wine into the chalice. “I maketh this draught from the blood of my veins and the life force of my body, so that it may be a worthy offering,” she murmured, stirring the wine with an ivory rod.